So, after a very lengthy Project 365 that definitely had its share of memorable moments, I wanted to take things easier on myself this 2011, and I also decided not to focus on magic for my regular 2011 project this year, although I will still write about magic here and there when the need for it arises.
As most people who know me are aware of, I’ve been into radio for as long as I owned one. I grew up listening to the legends of the airwaves, I’ve trained under some of them, and I’ve even worked with some of them. By extension, my love for radio would also mean a love for the music they play, and while I’m mostly a mainstream kind of music fan, my tastes in music are pretty diverse. I like a few weird songs, I like a lot of OPM, I love boybands, I have a few choice rock and alternative bands, I’m cool with the Beatles, and I worship Rick Astley.
I have this other musical thing I do sometimes, called “Lyrically Speaking Scribbles,” and while I enjoy doing that, I think that I don’t want to force myself to do one for every instalment of Project 52, since those are normally emotionally-loaded affairs, and I’d rather not to draw that out of myself every single time, so for this Project 52, all I’m going to do is talk about the song and just tell you why I chose the song I chose for the week.
And to kick things off, I figured I would start with my favourite musical artist of all time, Rick Astley, and his song, “Never Gonna Give You Up.”
Back in 1987, Rick Astley, who was 21 at the time, scored a monster hit with this song. He took the discos by storm, and gave rise to the star of one Roderick Paulate in the Philippine scene. It was amazing, and it was quite a snapshot of the 80’s. The man never quite reached the same level of commercial viability afterwards, but he was by no means a one-hit wonder, what with “Together Forever” and “Cry For Help” at least getting noticed afterwards.
Today, he still comes out with new songs, but he is most famous/infamous for being the source of the Rickroll, a 2007/2008 joke that still exists to this day, and uses this particular music video as a punchline.
But see, what I like about this song is the sheer cheek of the lyrics: the promises in the lyrics are made of heavy stuff, and yet it’s set to a kind of beat that is as dance-y as can possibly be. The disconnect between the lyrics and the melody come so well together that it’s hard to imagine whose bright idea it was in the first place to bring them together.
In bringing them together, things just panned out so well. And as a huge Rick Astley fan, this is arguably one of my favourite songs, if not my favourite song of all time. I know, I know. Personal tastes and all that, but hey, at least, if ever anyone wanted to look up “Never Gonna Give You Up”, at some point, they’re gonna have to stumble upon this humble blog.
I think this song represents me pretty handily this week not because of the lyrics but because, being the first week of 2011, it’s a good time for me to reaffirm my being a true-blue Rick Astley fan. Yes. Yes, I am.
No comments:
Post a Comment